Read Prediction

1

Topic:

industry

social

Social is no longer going to be special

As social media has evolved as important over the past few years, what we’ve seen is typically what happens when there are new technology trends in the industry that we have any number of self-proclaimed gurus and experts who come into the market, try to explain how everything is different, how all these tools change everything – and there is some truth behind that.

But, at the same time, we have to really realize that to become mainstream and to become useful to organizations, something new – and social media very much is that – needs to really get absorbed into the mainstream definition of everything we’re doing as a marketing organization.

So, even derivative terms like social CRMs, social selling, we should expect to hear less about those terms. Don’t forget that there was a point in time not too long ago where telemarketing was actually a revolutionary concept (at least I’m old enough to remember that). Email marketing, not too long ago at all, was pretty revolutionary. And today, email, the phone, these are just tools; these are channels used to work with our customers, used as communication vehicles, but they’re really absorbed into what we do every day as marketers – and social media is absolutely going in the same direction.

So, I think that in 2015, we’re going to hear a lot less about separate and different social media strategies. Certainly, social indicates that customers are going to continue to be in control of the conversation, and in control of their relationship. But, social is going to be fully absorbed in everything we do, everyday as marketers.